Earl Leslie started working in the oil fields of Long Beach right after he graduated from high school.

Later, he found out the pay was better at the Long Beach shipyard.

“I caulked seams in the ships for 87 cents an hour. Everything was going great until I got my draft notice.”

Leslie took himself to Los Angeles, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps, passed the required tests, and was sent to Buckley Field, Colo. for cadet training.

“When I got there they told me, ‘We don't need any pilots — we need navigators,' So I trained as a navigator and flew as a waist gunner.”

That gig didn't last long. After a few months of firing at practice targets, his orders were changed.

“They said: ‘We're going to have to send you to an Army unit. They need more ground troops.'” Leslie was sent to Camp Cook, Calif.

He joined the tank corps and was assigned as a loader/radioman with the 11th Armored Division, 41st Tank Battalion.

The battalion shipped out in late September on a transatlantic crossing that took two full weeks.

After spending a couple of months in England readying for battle, they were shipped across the English Channel, — landing in Cherbourg, France on Dec. 20.

The Battle of the Bulge was on, and the tank battalion was sent to the front lines to fight with Patton's 3rd Army during one of the coldest winters in recent history. They came under attack on their way to Belgium.

“We were going through the field and the Germans were all around us. We were going in there blind. They had us zeroed in.”

They blasted the men with 88 mm anti-tank shells.

“One of them hit our tank and exploded — and we all got out of the tank as fast as we could.”

Leslie, who was uninjured, soon found himself back on the battlefield.

“I got another tank, another crew, and we started off to Belgium — and we got hit again.”

The explosion lifted the tank off the ground and slammed it back into the earth.

“Then I went back to headquarters and got my third tank.”

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He was in a new position — as bow gunner — when the tank approached a crossroads and, “All of a sudden, ‘Whap!' we got hit again in the side where I was sitting. Shrapnel was just bouncing all around inside that tank.”

“The driver — he lost both feet — got out ahead of me and we crawled over to the church wall.”

They looked down the road and saw an anti-tank gun pointing their way. Two Germans wearing white (snow) uniforms started walking toward the wounded men.

“We thought: ‘Uh oh, they're going to finish us off.'

“The tank behind us saw them coming and opened fire with a machine gun.”

They tried to run for cover, but the tank followed up with its big guns.

“I guess they got the guys, because they never came out again.”

Leslie's legs were in bad shape, and one of the men started carrying him back to the lines. After trudging through the snow, “We got to the road and somebody said, ‘Halt!' and he dropped me like a sack of potatoes.”

Turned out it was one of the good guys — a member of the 101st Airborne Division.

“He scooped me up like a baby and ran me back to the lines.”

They made it back in one piece and Leslie — who had shrapnel in his arms and legs and the big toe of his left foot blown apart — was patched up in Luxembourg.

“I had to learn to walk again.”

Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II on Sundays. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
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